For the packing and securing of bulky goods to bring them into proper condition for transportation, use is made of prestretched films which are referred to as stretch films. The stretch films are available in the form of stretch film rolls. Presently, to avoid waste, coreless film rolls have been introduced on the market, i.e. film rolls without a cardboard core or the like. Due to the absence of the core, a special wind-off assistance device has to be used for winding off the film roll and for applying the film on a given object.
Known from EP 1 120 347 A2 is a wind-off assistance device which substantially consists of two receiving means connected to each other by an axial connection element. The film roll is supported for rotation on these two receiving means. The outer diameter of the connection element is considerably smaller than the inner diameter of the film roll so that the connection element cannot impede the rotational movement of the film roll when the film is wound off.
During the winding-off of the final innermost film layers, the rest of the film roll has become so instable and flabby that it will tend to undergo torsional deformation and/or be deformed in some other manner. For these reasons, the final 20 to 30meters of the length of a coreless film roll cannot be wound off anymore.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a wind-off assistance device for coreless film rolls which makes it possible that the film roll can be wound off completely.
According to the present invention, the above object is achieved by the features indicated in claim 1.